Cook v. Gralike, No. 99-929 (Argued Nov. 6, 2000)

Issue: Term Limits
Can a state place a label on federal election ballots that tells voters which members of the state's federal congressional delegation do not support term limits?

Case: Term Limits involve limiting the number of terms legislators may hold office. Missouri term-limit supporters came up with what Drake University Law Professor Tom Baker has described as a catch-22 to pressure Congress into approving a federal constitutional amendment limiting how many terms its members could serve.

The supporters amended the Missouri State Constitution to require the state’s federal congressional delegation to decide between pushing Congress to approve a federal constitutional amendment or risk being labeled on their election ballots as candidates who had failed to support term limits.

Decision: A unanimous Supreme Court said the state had gone too far, with Justice Kennedy concluding that a state "simply lacks the power to impose any conditions on the election of [federal] senators and representatives, save the neutral provisions as to the time, place and manner of elections."

Read how Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the state constitutional amendment unconstitutionally added to the qualifications for members of Congress, violating the State’s Elections Clause power in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

Read the Elections Clause in Art. I, §4 of the U.S. Constitution.

Read the transcript of the oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read the State of Missouri's brief defending the state's constitution.

Read the brief filed by Donald Gralike, a Democratic candidate for Congress, arguing that federal constitutional guarantees trump the state constitutional rule in this case.

Read the United States' amicus brief that successfully argued that the Missouri constitutional amendment exceeded the state's power to regulate federal election.

Read the U.S. Supreme Court's decision prohibiting the states from regulating federal elections in this manner.

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